Top 5 Career Hall of Fame – Gameweek 23 Review

It’s been a torrid season for Career Hall of Fame (HoF) number one Peter Kouwenberg (aka My Pretty Pony). The defence of his HoF title could hardly have gone much worse, not only is he last out of our Career HoF Top Five but he’s also slipped to 16th in the Live Hall of Fame. What a welcome relief Gameweek 23 proved for the Nottingham Forest fan.

Peter achieved his best Gameweek rank of the season (36,491) and his 94 points was the highest in the Top Five. His impressive total was helped by double-digit returns from four of his players – Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah, West Ham’s Marko Arnautovic, and Spurs duo Heung-Min Son and Harry Kane.

Curiously, his starting eleven is exactly the same as the overall FPL number 1 – the very template Wild Rover highlighted in one of this week’s hot topics. However, following the herd is unlikely to see Peter stagnate, as Wild Rover suggests. On this week’s Scoutcast it was pointed out there are marked differences between the Top 10K template and overall template.  For Peter, who is still languishing down in 343,753rd place, sticking to the Top 10K’s template could easily see him climb the ranks and salvage some respectability from what is currently his worst FPL season ever.

Peter’s high score saw him close the gap on this week’s worst performer Graeme Sumner (aka Gregor), currently fourth in the Top Five. Graeme’s score of 58 means he is now only 18 points ahead of Peter in the battle for the wooden spoon. A total of six points from his four defenders and goalkeeper, coupled with another disappointing display from Chelsea’s Alvaro Morata means Graeme drops out of the top 200k. Like Peter, Graeme is yet to make the top 100k this season.

Another manager to suffer at the hands (and feet) of Morata in Gameweek 23 was career HoF number five Mark Sutherns (aka Mark). Mark ‘raged transferred’ Morata out of his team this week. He argued on this week’s Scoutcast that having lost points on the Spaniard he didn’t want to lose pounds as well. Mark has a strong squad value of £106.1m, as concern about being able to afford all the players he wants continues to play a big part in his squad selection.

After making successful template following transfers in recent weeks Mark has decided to be a little contrary in his Morata replacement – opting for Leicester’s Jamie Vardy over the slightly pricier template forward Liverpool’s Roberto Firmino. Sitting just inside the top 20,000 Mark feels the Leicester man could help him climb the ranks should Firmino fail.

Hot on Mark’s heels is the early season wooden spoon holder Matthew Jones (aka Numb). With a largely template team Matthew’s faith in Crystal Palace keepers Wayne Hennessey and Julian Speroni, has proved an effective differential. As Jay discovered during Kanexit losing Hennessey is not a good idea, and an eight point FPL return from the Welshman in Gameweek 23 was further proof of his value.

Matthew’s 87 points saw him move up to 27,698 in the overall standings.

Gameweek 23 was also a good week for current Live Hall of Fame leader Jay Egersdorff. A total of 91 points means he moved up to 399th overall. Later in the article I’ll take a look at his competition for the FPL crown itself.

This article focuses on the moves and strategies employed by the five elite managers who grace the upper echelons of this site’s Career Hall of Fame. Between them these managers have achieved nine top 1,000 finishes in the past three seasons and have ended up in the top 10,000 a whopping 37 times over the course of their FPL careers.

To help out I have also deployed Fusen’s FPL Statistico tool to gain an extra insight into their thinking.

POINTS & RANK

The graph below shows the ranks of the top five managers over the season so far. The vertical scale is from rank 1 to 3m. The distance between the ranks corresponds to the number of points separating them. For instance there are 264pts between rank 1 and rank 100k but only 112pts between 100k and 1m. The graph gives an idea of how difficult it is to move up the ranks as you near the summit.

CAPTAIN

So far this season nine different players have been handed the armband by our Top Five.

Kane is the most popular having been chosen 50% of the time followed by Manchester United’s Romelu Lukaku on 19%. Lukaku hasn’t been chosen as captain since Graeme picked him in Gameweek 13. However his impressive early season form means he has proven a more reliable captain choice than the erratic Kane – the Belgian averages a 14.2 point return compared to Kane’s 11.7 points.

In the graphic below I’ve displayed this information for the five most popular captain picks.

Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah, Manchester City’s Raheem Sterling and Chelsea’s Eden Hazard complete the most popular captain picks. Salah has been chosen 10% of the time and averages 17.6 points as captain, Sterling has been chosen 6% of the time and Hazard 5%. Hazard averages 14.8 points, while Sterling averages an impressive 24.9 points.

TRANSFERS

TRANSFER SUCCESS – GAMEWEEK 23

TRANSFER SUCCESS – SEASON SO FAR

Caveats to this table:

• It doesn’t reflect that Transfers aren’t made with only one fixture in mind
• It doesn’t reflect when Patience in an underperforming player finally pays off
• Points from newly transferred in players left on the bench are included.
• Players transferred in and captained have their points counted double.

Once again our elite quintet were let down by a new signing. This week it was the turn of Manchester United’s Jesse Lingard, who failed to live up to his new nickname of ‘Messi’ Lingard.

A peculiarity of this season is how much worse the Top Five are doing when it comes to immediate transfer points. While the average number of transfers is identical to last season at 28, the average number of points gained per manager after hits is significantly lower – 23 vs 132.

It’s not clear why it is proving harder to time transfers correctly this season, especially as the average points for the Top Five is higher – 1,359 compared to 1,272 in Gameweek 23 last season. Is it a sign that patience is proving a virtue? Is there something in this that would explain why Peter and Graeme are fairing so poorly? Does this mean we can expect Lingard to bounce back after his disappointing return last week?

JAY’S COMPETITION

Using Premier Fantasy Tools to take a look at the 398 managers currently above Jay in the overall FPL standings, 216 of them have used at least one of their chips – 54 managers have played their Bench Boost chip; 138 have played their Free Hit chip; 125 have played their Triple Captain chip; 63 have used their second Wildcard.

Of the managers ahead of Jay only seven have finished inside the top 1,000 in the past five seasons and have all their chips intact. So in terms of experience and points potential Jay remains in a strong position.

Compared to those seven managers Jay has the best average rank over recent seasons (4,607).

The highest ranked manager of the 7 is David Isaac, currently 104th overall and 22 points ahead of Jay. David has a best ever finish of 573 and is currently 58th in the Live HoF.

Although he’s used his Triple Captain chip Matt Kearney (aka Bøwstring the Carp) is another manager with decent pedigree. Currently 14th overall and leading the Fantasy Football Scout league, Matt is 55 points ahead of Jay. He has a best ever finish of 754, which came in the 2015/16 season, and he is currently 659th in the Live HoF.

Current Live Hall of Fame number two Grant Barclay (aka Jake Donahue) is creeping up on Jay. Now only 4 points behind him, Grant has finished in the top 10,000 in each of the last five seasons and has a better average rank than Jay over that period – 3,271 vs Jay’s 4,607. Grant’s best ever rank is 629, which he managed last year.

Finally, Ville Ronka is back up to third in the Live HoF but he remains 47 points behind Jay in FPL. The enigmatic Finn was no doubt cursing the FPL Gods last week – another manager to buy Lingard except Ville sold West Ham’s Marko Arnautovic to accommodate the United player. Perhaps he’s trying to make Jay feel better about Kanexit.

TEMPLATE – Gameweek 23

Players in Bold are in 3 teams or more

Speroni, AN Other

Christensen, Alonso, Ogbonna, Otamendi, Dunk

Salah, Sterling, Lingard, Arnautovic, Son

Kane, Firmino, Quaner / Calvert-Lewin

PLAYERS – Gameweek 23

AVERAGE COST PER PLAYER

*based on GW1 prices

Goalkeeper – £4.4m

Defender – £5.1m

Midfielder – £7.6m

Forward – £8.8m

In The Bank (ITB) – £1.4

FORMATION

The most popular formation this week was 3-5-2, it is the second most frequently chosen formation over the course of season on 25%. 3-4-3 is the most frequently used FPL set-up and has been chosen 50% of the time.

GAMEWEEK 24 – FORECAST

As mentioned, Mark has already brought in Vardy for Morata. He has also now used his second free transfer and it is likely that he has brought in Everton’s Jordan Pickford for Burnley’s Nick Pope, which was a move he discussed on the Scoutcast. This looks a smart long term decision considering the Clarets’ regular number one, Tom Heaton, is likely to return to first team action soon and Toffees’ boss Sam Allardyce has revealed that he should have been more boring and defensive with his team selection in the wake of Everton’s defeat to Spurs. 

Mark and Jay both look likely to play safe and captain Tottenham’s Harry Kane away to Southampton.

In his Gameweek 24 preview video Jay revealed his concerns about the rotation risk to another potential captain pick  – Manchester City’s Sergio Aguero. An enticing fixture at home to Newcastle would in seasons past have had managers scrambling to fit the Argentine into their sides. However, with other players performing well there is less of a fear factor surrounding Aguero this season.

Jay pointed out that with matches coming up on weekends and in midweek, City manager Pep Guardiola may look to protect Aguero by either resting him or bringing him off early. So while he may be good this weekend don’t be surprised if he comes off after 60 or 70 minutes.

Jay has previously mentioned his reluctance to bring in players who are either rotation risks or unlikely to complete the full 90 minutes.

Jay suggested keeping an eye on Ben Crelin for the latest fixture permutations, an important consideration as we build towards the blank and double Gameweeks.  

He again focused on the human element – the mood or mind of a player. Highlighting Everton’s new signing Theo Walcott and Liverpool’s Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain as two players with something to play for – a World Cup place.